


Bitter Taste

by KananOrgana



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:13:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KananOrgana/pseuds/KananOrgana
Summary: Hera develops serious symptoms of a mystery illness that warps her personality and Kanan's the only one that can do anything about it
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Bitter Taste

“Hey,” Kanan grinned, slipping into Hera’s room. “How was your day, love?”

Hera laughed and shrugged. “Not bad. I’m assuming yours wasn’t great, though.”

“Ezra and I were working on mind tricks all afternoon and now I have a massive headache.” Kanan pinched his nose then sipped his water. “But he did make some progress, so it could’ve been worse, I suppose.”

Hera smiled, reaching her hand to the back of Kanan’s neck so that she could rub the base of his skull with her thumb—that always helped her whenever she got a headache, which happened a little more often than she cared to admit.

They sat in silence for a few moments but Hera’s stomach interrupted it with a loud gurgle that did not sound good.

“You feeling okay?” Kanan raised an eyebrow. Hera nodded.

“Yeah, just a little nauseated. I’m okay.” She leaned against his side and turned her attention back to the holovid she’d been lazily focusing on. It wasn’t long before her stomach made its presence known again, this time louder and slightly painful.

“Have you eaten lately?” Kanan asked, placing the back of his hand against her forehead. A little too warm.

“Yeah, a bantha patty not long ago”

“Hera...don’t take this the wrong way, but did you make it?”

“Yes. Why?” She raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“Are you sure it was fully cooked?”

Hera shot Kanan a look but didn’t say anything. She crossed her arms and settled back into her bed. But it didn’t take long for things to get worse. Within a matter of minutes, Hera began throwing up. Luckily, Kanan sensed it and met her with a small trashcan before anything got on her bed. He checked her forehead again and it was still getting warmer. 

Time went on and it seemed Hera was able to find every reason to lash out at the Jedi. One minute his breathing was too loud, the next he was being “too quiet”. 

“So now you’re just going to sit there and do nothing.” Hera scoffed. “Why are you even in here in the first place?”

“That’s it. I’m taking you to a medcenter. I don’t like this.” Kanan stood up. 

“Kanan, I’m fine.”

“No, Hera, you’re not.”

“Oh, so you’ve finally decided to take some time out of your day to care about me now? I’m flattered.” Hera spat. Kanan was taken aback. His jaw slacked and he backtracked. He took a deep, centering breath and drew his mouth into a fine line.

“I’m taking you to a medcenter. That’s final.”

“‘Final’? Excuse me? This is my ship and I will be DAMNED if anybody gives me orders on my own kriffing ship!” Hera screamed. 

“Stop with the captain voice. It isn’t going to work. We’re going.” 

Kanan tried his best to be firm but his nervousness was palpable at that point. Hera continued to stall, insisting she was fine and he was just overreacting. But she quickly became even less and less like herself. Her usual snappy comebacks were replaced with bitter responses for every word that came out of Kanan’s mouth, and as time passed, every word dripped with more and more venom. 

“We’re leaving. Let’s go.”

“No.” She crossed her arms, refusing to look at him. 

“That wasn’t a question.” Kanan barked, putting one of her arms over his shoulders. She resisted but he was stronger and it didn’t take much to pull her out of her room she was clearly pretty weak and it was definitely starting to show. 

“Whoa, Hera, are you okay? You don’t look so good...” Ezra said once they’d made it into the common room. 

“I am fine. What the kriff is it with you damn Jedi today?! Maybe if you two spent half as much time training as you do pretending to worry about everyone else’s business, we’d have less trouble on missions!”

Ezra’s face fell and he stepped back in disbelief. Kanan hadn’t seen him that hurt since their first Empire Day together. Sabine’s jaw dropped and she stood cautiously, clenching her fists. 

“Kanan, what’s wrong with Hera?” She asked slowly. This only succeeded in angering Hera more. 

“Okay, so it’s everyone in the damn ship, then!” She yelled. 

“I’m taking her to a medcenter. I’m not sure what’s going on but I don’t like it. Hold down the fort, okay? Keep your comm nearby.” Kanan said while pushing Hera up the ladder. 

They took off in the Phantom but not without Hera’s protests. After deciding yelling at Kanan wasn’t doing her any good, she started jabbing his shoulder roughly. When he ignored that, she escalated things by trying to shove him away from the controls. He merely sighed and focused on centering himself. 

He landed the Phantom with ease but when trying to walk Hera into the medcenter, he found himself on the receiving end of Hera’s fist...in his face. 

Security droids ran up to them and restrained her with ease, but not before her elbow made contact with his mouth, at which point she resorted to kicking and screaming. Kanan groaned and ran his hands through his hair. 

“Can you hurry? Things are only getting worse.” The droids nodded and quickly dragged her into a room where a med droid quickly injected Hera with a sedative. 

“It is for the safety of everyone else here.” It said. The sedative definitely calmed her down, but she was still mostly conscious. The most she could really do was grumble and shoot daggers at Kanan. 

“Yeah, I understand.” But it didn’t mean Kanan had to like it. “I-I think she might’ve had some bad bantha patty or something.” 

“Bantha meat would not be having such an effect on her mood, vitals, and abnormal brain activity.” 

“Then what could?!” Hera’s discomfort and agitation had really started to wear on Kanan. The black eye and busted lip weren’t helping, either. 

“We will have to wait for the results of the scans. Please be patient.” 

“Yeah, easier said than done.” Kanan mumbled. Thankfully, the results came back within a few minutes, though it felt like an eternity. 

“It appears she has been poisoned by a substance known as teccitin.” The droid said flatly before reaching into a cabinet. 

“What’s that?”

“It is a poison that can often be deadly if ingested. However we have the antidote and will administer it immediately.”

Kanan let out a deep breath and pinched his nose. Poisoned? How the kriff did that happen?

“Where does this poison come from?”

The droid injected Hera with a serum, which she didn’t appreciate, even in her relaxed state. She started screaming obscenities again...all of which were directed at Kanan. He tried blocking her out to focus on the droid. 

“We aren’t exactly sure, it seems to be quite rare.”

So how had Hera managed to come into contact with it? 

“She will be very tired for a few days, so she should be placed on strict bed rest. The antidote takes time to go into effect due to the scale at which the poison attacks the body. Her symptoms may not fully disappear for a standard week.”

A kriffing week? 

“We will wheel her to your ship. She should stay off her feet until tomorrow. The antidote tends to have a weakening effect on muscles and unnecessary movement poses a fall hazard.”

Maybe the sleep part wasn’t such a bad thing, Kanan thought, pressing the area around his eye. “Thanks.” By then, Hera was completely knocked out but her fever was going down steadily and her other vitals had stabilized, for the most part. Another droid helped Kanan strap Hera into the Phantom and they headed back to the Ghost. 

Kanan groaned after reattaching to the Ghost. He was pretty relieved that Hera was asleep, although that would only make it more difficult to get her back to bed. He sighed and picked her up. He realized he’d have to go down the ladder to get to her quarters and he groaned, pulling out his comm. 

“Spectre Four?” 

“What’s going on, Spectre One?” Zeb sounded distressed. 

“Can you come up here and help me with Spectre Two?”

“On my way.” The comm clicked and seconds later, Zeb appeared. 

“Do you just want me to carry her? I feel like that’d be easier...”

“No. I just need help readjusting her.” Kanan said. Zeb nodded curtly, seeming to understand. “Where are Sabine and Ezra?”

“Ezra’s sitting at the nose gun. Sabine’s in the common room, she’s still pretty mad, to say the least.”

Kanan nodded and picked Hera back up. “I’ll talk to them in a little bit. Thanks, Zeb.”

Kanan entered Hera’s quarters to find Chopper waiting. The droid started going off as soon as he saw him. Kanan rolled his eyes and carefully laid Hera down onto her bed, slowly draping her blanket over her body.

“Yeah, Chop. I know.”

Chopper replied with a series of warbles.

“She’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna need to pick up the slack for the next week while she gets better.”

Chopper found himself VERY concerned at “week”. 

“Do you have any idea where she may have come into contact with teccitin?”

Chopper’s dome spun quickly as he let out a screech. 

“I don’t know, Chop. I’ve never heard of it. Did she leave the Ghost today?”

There was a short pause before Chopper responded. 

“She went on a cantina op? Because of course she did. Why didn’t she tell anybody else?”

Chopper grunted. 

“And? I train him every day, could she not have mentioned it this morning?”

Chopper shrugged and grunted again. 

“Yeah, I’m starting to think Fulcrum’s actually trying to kill us off now.” 

Kanan decided he wouldn’t leave Hera alone that night but also decided he was still slightly afraid of her. So he compromised and sat a safe distance from her bunk. After about an hour of scrolling through his datapad, he settled on meditating. He knew he needed to step back and calm himself down for his own sake. 

“Kanan? What’s going on?” Hera’s voice was groggy. Kanan wasn’t sure of how much time had passed, but judging by how quiet the ship was, it had to be past midnight. 

“So… you decided to join the world of the living.” He said, not bothering to look up from his meditation. 

“Kanan, don’t be a smartass. What. Happened?”

“You tell me, Captain. You went on that solo op, right? You know, without bothering to tell anybody?” It was his turn to be mad and he was going to cash in on it. He opened his eyes and sent the twi’lek a lazy side-glance. 

“It was an in and out op and Fulcrum said it was urgent. You were busy.”

“That’s not how we do things! You know that! And this is exactly why we don’t do things this way!” Kanan yelled. He was sure the rest of the crew could hear but he didn’t care. What Hera had done was stupid and reckless and he needed her to understand that. 

“Then do you mind telling me what happened? Because I don’t have a clue as to why you’re yelling but you’d better hope you have a damn good reason.” Hera was getting visibly angry again. 

“Whoever you met, whoever the contact was, they poisoned you. It didn’t fully get into your system until a few hours later. You got a dangerously high fever, you were getting sick, and you...weren’t yourself.” Kanan had lowered his voice. Getting angry wouldn’t help him get through to her. He knew that but how could he not be angry?

“What do you mean?”

“You started with yelling at me, then you completely blew up at Ezra and Sabine when I was trying to take you to the medcenter. You told Ezra that if we spent half the time training as we do ‘pretending to worry about others’ we’d have more successful missions. Then when Sabine stepped in, you snapped at her. By the time we got to the medcenter, you were getting physical. They had to restrain and sedate you.”

Hera’s anger faded, replaced with distress. 

“Did I hurt you?” She asked after a few minutes. 

Kanan sighed and pointed to his black eye. 

“Kanan...” 

“It’s fine. You weren’t you. I’d be more concerned about the kids.” Kanan shrugged. From what Hera could tell, he didn’t seem upset anymore. She, on the other hand, felt awful. But when she tried to get up and find the kids, Kanan shot up and pushed on her shoulder, making her get back into bed. 

“Med droid said not to let you up for 24 hours.” 

“Then can you have Sabine and Ezra come in here?” 

Kanan sighed. “I can try. But they’re both pretty upset, so I’m not gonna promise anything.”

Hera groaned and let her head fall back against the wall. Any sort of movement seemed to cause some form of pain, so she tried to relax, a venture she found unsuccessful. 

A moment later, someone knocked on her door. 

“Come in.” The door slid open to reveal Ezra and Sabine, neither willing to look at Hera. They hesitated, but still walked into Hera’s room. “Sit down, please. I owe you both an apology.” The kids shot each other a glance before sitting across from the bunk. “I don’t have an excuse for what I said earlier. Neither of you deserved any of that. I’m sorry.” 

“Hera, s’not your fault. Really. It’s okay. I promise.” Ezra said softly. 

“It is, though. I went on an op without backup and without even telling anybody I was going out. I’d thought it was going to be a quick thing because I’ve run that same op more times than I can count, but really, I put us all in danger because I thought I knew what I was doing. I was wrong.”

Sabine still sat with her arms crossed, not making much of an effort to look at Hera. If she was being honest, she didn’t care that Hera had snapped at her. No, she was pissed at how Hera had been in Ezra’s face. Poison or not, she wasn’t going to forget that any time soon. 

“It’s not like you took the poison on purpose, Hera.” Ezra rubbed his eyes and yawned and Hera realized just how late it’d gotten. 

“No, but doing something as stupid as what I did, I may as well have. Sabine?”

The Mandalorian let out a loud breath before finally looking Hera in the eye. 

“I’m sorry. You deserved better. You all deserved better.” Hera said softly. Sabine shrugged. 

“Poison takes a hell of a toll on the body. Things happen. I’m gonna go to bed,” but before leaving Hera’s quarters, she turned and said, “might want to grab an ice pack for Kanan.”

That really hit Hera in the gut. She knew Kanan probably didn’t care, but his eye would be bruised for a while, so any time any crewmember looked at him, they’d be reminded of what Hera had done and that hurt. But maybe she deserved as much. 

“It’s okay, Hera. Really. I promise.” Ezra gave her a small smile. Hera relaxed a bit. 

“Come here.” She opened her arms for a hug, but decided she couldn’t blame him if he refused. It wasn’t a problem though, because Ezra grinned and gave her a gentle but firm hug. That was one of his favorite things about Hera. She gave really great hugs. “Thank you for listening, Ezra. Good night.”

“Good night!” He called as he headed back to his quarters. Before her door could slide shut, Kanan slipped back into Hera’s room. 

“Kanan...”

“Don’t.” He said softly, sitting in the same spot the kids had been in. He sighed and let his hair down before running his hands through it nervously a few times. Hera watched intently, trying not to focus on his bruise, but failing. For it to be that dark but still fairly colorful, she had to have hit him hard. It looked incredibly painful, too. Then she noticed he had a split lip with a spot of blood on his chin. Had she done that, too...?

“I’m sorr—“ 

“It isn’t your fault,” Kanan said, “You didn’t poison yourself. The contact poisoned you. Don’t blame yourself for that. I personally blame Fulcrum and I can’t guarantee that I won’t give him a piece of my mind the next time he makes contact.”

“Kanan, it wasn’t Fulcrum’s fault. It was just bad Intel.”

“You could have died. You almost did. Whatever the contact put in your drink was rare. We’re lucky they even had an antidote. We could have lost you. I could have lost you.” Kanan couldn’t help but look at the floor now. If something had happened to Hera, he never would’ve forgiven himself. He was there to protect her. That was his job. He was supposed to look out for her. Maybe Hera was right. Maybe he was too distracted. His time with her had been extremely limited over the last few months and they rarely had a chance to even check in with each other. Maybe if he was better at dividing his time...

“You didn’t.” Kanan looked up to find Hera on the edge of her bunk, slowly reaching out her arms. He exhaled loudly but made his way over to Hera all the same. She scooted right up next to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry, Kanan. I’m sorry for not telling you about the op, I’m sorry for being so insufferable and awful to you, and I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

“I know.” He said, placing a kiss on the top of her head. “Just try not to make a habit of it, okay? You’re supposed to be the stable one around here. Although I must say that you really do have one hell of a right hook.”

“Thank you, dear.” Hera laughed.


End file.
